Government, had, in November extended to March 31, 2018 the deadline for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) for taxpayers.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has extended for an indefinite period the deadline to link Aadhaar with services such as mobile phone, banking and insurance, but made an exception for state-run welfare schemes and subsidies provided by the government.

A five-judge Constitution bench led by CJI Dipak Misra on Tuesday ruled the government will not insist on the 12-digit unique identification number for a number of services, including holding common entrance tests and issuing passports.

In the case of welfare schemes run by the government and subsidies provided by it such as cooking gas subsidy and wages under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, however, the court said that the citizen would have to either get Aadhaar or declare to the authorities that he or she had applied for it. This exception was made at the insistence of Attorney General KK Venugopal.

The bench passed the order after senior advocate Arvind Datar drew its attention to the latest circular of the government making Aadhaar mandatory to get passport under the tatkaal scheme. Even if your passport runs out of pages and you apply for tatkaal passport, you have to produce Aadhaar, argued Datar.

Venugopal said this was justified since under the tatkaal scheme police verification was carried out postfacto instead of before issue of passport in ordinary course of business.

CJI then extended the court’s December 15, 2017, interim order till the matter was finally heard and judgment pronounced. Arguments are yet to be wrapped up and are expected to conclude in another week or so. A judgement may take a while.

SC is hearing a slew of petitions challenging the legality of the Act passed in 2016. Those opposed to it have challenged it on several counts, including violation of a citizen’s right to privacy. Venugopal agreed to SC extending the interim order except in case of welfare schemes and subsidies.

“However, benefits, subsidies and services covered under Section 7 of The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 should remain undisturbed,” he said. The court accepted his stand.

On Tuesday, the bench heard arguments from former FM P Chidambaram against passing of the Aadhaar Act as a money bill.

This, he said, bypassed the Rajya Sabha and was against federalism. If it had not been passed as a money bill, RS would have made Aadhaar optional, not mandatory, he argued. At best, it was a financial bill, he said.